CAPPE

CURRENT RESEARCH

Technologies Program:

This
program deals with risks and responsibilities relating to research into
technologies that combine with or add to existing technologies, including
ethical issues in bio/nanotechnology, computing and IT.

Poverty Program:

This program focuses on building an ethically and empirically based account of what development is, what standards it ought to use, and the like. Issues addressed include the measurement of poverty and global minimal labour standards.

Health Program:

This program will conduct research in relation to a range of interconnected ethical issues in the public health domain.

Ecology Program:

This program examines a
range of issues in environmental ethics, including ethical issues related to
existing and potential anthropogenic climate change.

Economy Program:

This program focuses on a number of central ethical issues arising in the economic sphere, including corporate responsibility and economic corruption.

Security Program:

This program focuses on the ethical
dimensions of a range of current domestic and international security problems,
including ethical issues pertaining to terrorism, crime, and humanitarian
intervention.

2014

Conferences and Workshops

Workshop: Who is Responsible for Climate Change?

While the ethics of climate change is well-worked territory, notions of
responsibility and crucial questions about responsibility are often taken
for granted and philosophers seldom train the spotlight on the conceptual
complexity of responsibility itself in this context. This workshop explored
whether in critically addressing a range of questions about responsibility
for anthropogenic climate change we are required to challenge prevailing
philosophical conceptions of responsibility as well as widely held
assumptions about the conditions under which we are responsible for what we
do or for what we do not prevent.
The workshop included talks from Christian Barry (ANU), Garrett Cullity
(University of Adelaide), Robyn Eckersley (University of Melbourne), Jeremy
Moss (University of Melbourne), Tim Mulgan (University of Auckland), Ingmar
Persson (Gothenburg University/Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics),
Janna Thompson (La Trobe University), and Steve Vanderheiden (University of
Colorado (Boulder)/CAPPE).Click Here
for more

Workshop: The Procreation Asymmetry

Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga campus, 26th July, 2014

This workshop focused on evaluating the prospects of vindicating an
intuitive ‘procreation asymmetry’: that we are obligated not to create
miserable children, but have no obligation to create happy children.
Commonsense suggests that procreation is permissible only if it will give
rise to the existence of a being with a life worth living. A child, for
instance, whose entire life will be filled with pain should not be brought
into existence. However, it seems that procreation is almost never required.
For instance, a couple may choose not to have children even if they are
confident that their children would lead very happy lives. Despite the
plausibility of these two common-sense claims, it turns out to be very hard
to reconcile them.

The workshop included talks from Jeff McMahan (Rutgers), one of the world’s
leading thinkers on procreation ethics, Daniel Halliday (University of
Melbourne/CAPPE), Daniel Cohen (Charles Sturt University/CAPPE), Robyn Kath
(University of Sydney), and Luara Ferracioli (University of Amsterdam).
Click Here
for more information

Symposium: The Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011

Parliament House, Canberra, 25th February, 2014

This Symposium was part of a project on the political approach to human
rights. The symposium focused on discussion of the past, present, and future
work of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, in the light of
the hopes and fears that have been expressed concerning the distinctive
human rights legislative framework established by the Parliament of
Australia. It brought together members of the Committee, and others involved
in humans rights matters, with leading academics who have taken a particular
interest in the Australian human rights framework.
The symposium included presentations by Senator Dean Smith, Chair of the
Parliamentary Joint Committee; Professor Janet Hiebert, one of the world’s
leading scholars of comparative human rights institutions; Professor David
Kinley, Professor of Human Rights at the University of Sydney; Dr Helen
Watchirs, OAM, ACT Human Rights and Discrimination Commissioner; Professor
Simon Rice, OAM, ANU College of Law and Chair of the ACT Law Reform Advisory
Council; and Professor Tom Campbell of CAPPE.

The second Cyber Security mini-symposium 2013

Charles Sturt University Wagga Wagga Campus. September 6,7

The second Cyber Security mini-symposium 2013 was held between the 5th
and the 6th of September 2013 at the new connected learning space in the
Wagga Wagga Campus. The event was organised by Dr Yeslam Al-Saggaf from the
School of Computing and Mathematics together with Professor John Weckert of
CAPPE. The activity was a collaboration between the Cyber Security Group
within the School of Computing and Mathematics at CSU and CAPPE and aimed at
raising the awareness of the Cyber Security Group members about the ethical
issues in cyber security. The first keynote speech was given by Professor
Keith Miller from the University of Missouri-St. Louis and addressed the
ethical issues in cyber security. Professor Miller also facilitated a
scenario based activity in which the group members deliberated on possible
solutions to the ethical dilemma that the scenario raised. The second
keynote speech was given by Professor Craig Valli from Edith Cowan
University Security Research Institute and revolved around building a
successful academic career in cyber security. The outcome of this event was
the formation of a partnership between the Cyber Security Group and Security
Research Institute in a current Security Research Institute project.

The Ethics of Cybersecurity

Joint CAPPE-NSC Workshop

05 August to 06 August 2013
Old Canberra House,
The Australian National University

Cybersecurity is an increasingly prominent feature in
national and international security, and threatens civilian and military
interests. An effective response to emerging threats to cybersecurity, however,
requires a comprehensive understanding of the problem and its potential
solutions. This workshop, co-hosted by CAPPE and the NSC aims to promote
discussion about key ethical issues emerging with regard to cybersecurity.

Workshop keynote speakers are:

George Lucas Jnr, Professor of Ethics and Public
Policy, Naval Postgraduate School (Monterey, California) and Distinguished Chair
of Ethics, VADM James Stockdale Center, US Naval Academy

Don Howard, Professor of Philosophy, Department of
Philosophy and Director, Reilly Center for Science, Technology and Values,
University of Notre Dame

This workshop will include
discussions from a range of academics and practitioners on the topics ethics of
cyberwarfare; cybercrime; and cybersecurity regulation and responses to
cyberthreats, with papers covering:
• Cyberwarfare and just war theory
• The politics and ethics of specific emerging threats to cybersecurity
• The emergence of global cyberterrorism
• Cybercrime and its interface with traditional models of crime
• Tools for mapping the conceptual terrain in cybersecurity
• The ethical and philosophical considerations of regulating cyberspace and
responding to cyberthreats

Keynotes:

George Lucas Jnr, Professor of Ethics and Public Policy,
Naval Postgraduate School (Monterey, California) and Distinguished Chair of
Ethics, VADM James Stockdale Center, US Naval Academy

Don Howard, Professor of Philosophy, Department of
Philosophy and Director, Reilly Center for Science, Technology and Values,
University of Notre Dame

2011

Conferences and Workshops

Human Rights: Old Dichotomies Revisited

November 25-26, 2011Sydney Law School, Australia

The conference will bring together the leading international and Australian scholars in jurisprudence and in international human-rights law to reflect upon the traditional, 'classical' dilemmas and taxonomies in the philosophy of human rights, in the light of recent developments in theories of rights and in the international law of human rights.

Keynote Speakers: Professor Tom Campbell, Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE).Professor Leslie Green, Oxford University. Professor David Kinley, University of Sydney. Professor Susan Marks, London School of Economics. Professor Thomas Pogge, Yale University and CAPPE. Professor Jeremy Waldron, New York University & Oxford University. Professor Neil Walker, University of Edinburgh.
Click Here
for more information

Ethics in Financial Transactions & Society: The Way Forward

September 17 and 18, 2011University of Melbourne

This is the fourth in a series of conference on ethics-based financial transactions. The scope of the conference is wide, including Islamic/Jewish/Christian financial ethics; prudential regulations and ethics; law and ethics; business ethics; investor protection; etc.Participants include: Mohamed Ariff, Professor of Finance, Bond University, Abdullah Saeed Professor & Director, National Centre for Excellence in Islamic Studies, University of Melbourne; Andrew Alexandra, Director CAPPE, University of Melbourne; Constant Mews, Professor of Religion, Monash University; Charles Sampford, Director, Key Centre for Ethics, Justice and Governance, Griffith University.
For further information
Click Here

Designing Just Institutions for Global Climate Governance

30 June to 1 July 2011
The Australian National University

The Cancún Agreements reached at the 2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference may have restored some confidence in the potential of multilateral climate negotiations, but fundamental questions remain about how an effective and fair global architecture can be established to address climate change over the longer term. Major ethical concerns include: how to bridge divergent views among developed and developing countries of what constitutes a fair or just distribution of climate-related responsibilities and entitlements; and the fairness or otherwise of various options for the form of a future governance architecture (whether based around a ‘top-down’ multilateral treaty or a more ‘bottom-up’ approach relying on unilateral or more loosely coordinated actions). The workshop aims to promote dialogue among researchers and practitioners engaging with climate ethics and policy in order to identify equitable and workable approaches for designing institutions for global climate governance.

This meeting marks the launch of the ASAP network in the UK. It will be co-hosted by Thomas Pogge, who has been at the centre of ASAP development efforts in the United States and elsewhere. Confirmed participants include such leading scholars of global justice, ethics, and development economics as Simon Caney, Kalypso Nicolaidis, Sonia Bhalotra, Suzanne Uniacke, Christien Van Den Anker, Thom Brooks, Elizabeth Ashford, Paul Jackson, Heather Widdows, Tom Sorell, and others. Click Here for more information

Measuring Poverty and Gender Disparity Conference

Hedley Bull Centre 1 (Bldg #130) ANU
0900-1300, March 21, 2011

The ANU is currently involved in a three-year, multi-country, interdisciplinary effort, financed by the Australian Research Council and project partners, to design and test measures of poverty and gender disparity that will improve on existing indices. In March, academics, staff from partner organisations and field researchers will be in Canberra to share findings from the first fieldwork phase of the project, which seeks to elicit the views of poor men and women on poverty and its gendered dimensions.
The Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, the new Gender Institute and the Development Policy Centre at the Crawford School of Economics and Government will co-host a half-day forum to enable the wider academic, policy and NGO community to hear from and talk with the research team about how gender shapes poverty, with particular reference to field contexts in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and why this matters for development policy. Time for questions is built into every session. An informal lunch will provide an opportunity for further discussion with field researchers and project team members.

2010

Conferences and Workshops

Fifth Annual New Horizons in Political Philosophy Conference

December 9-10, 2010
ANU, Canberra, Australia

New Horizons is an annual postgraduate conference intended to bring together postgraduate students from across Australasia to present and discuss new ideas in political theory and philosophy. Over the past 5 years, the conference has attracted students from Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia and Queensland. We hope to continue and expand on this geographic diversity while attracting postgraduate students from fields such as philosophy, political science, international relations, law, etc. to create a community of young scholars working in areas relevant to political theory and philosophy.

Keynote Speakers: Professor Tom Campbell, Director of Charles Sturt University Division of CAPPE and CAPPE Convenor. He specializes in the areas of Philosophy of Law, Justice, Rights, Business and Professional Ethics and Adam Smith.
Click Here for more information

Conference presented by the:Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, ANU and CSU

Loyalty in Criminal Justice Workshop (4th February)

CAPPE ANU Workshop:Loyalty in Criminal Justice.
Held in the Arts Meeting Room, Haydon Allen Building. More

Promoting Dual Use Ethics(28th-29th January)

'Inaugural Event of the Newly Designated WHO
Collaborating Centre for Bioethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, Australian
National University'.

28-29 January 2010. Common Room, University House at The Australian National University.
Co-organized by Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE), the
National Centre for Biosecurity, and University of Exeter as part of a Wellcome
Trust Biomedical Ethics Enhancement project on “Building a Sustainable Capacity
in Dual Use Bioethics”.

Public Lectures

ANU Public Lecture (4th August)

The return of Dr Strangelove: Prof Clive Hamilton
Held Finkel Lecture Theatre, at the John Curtin School of Medical. More

Book Launch (29th March)

Monday 29th of March 12:30-2:00pm

The ANU Climate change Institute & the Centre for Applied Philosophy & Public Ethics Present within the ANU Public Lecture Series 2010 the Book Launch 'Requiem for a Species
– Why we resist the truth about climate change' authored by Clive Hamilton.

2009

CAPPE 10 Anniversary

On Wednesday 16th December 2009 the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics celebrated its 10th anniversary. The
celebration took place at University House, in The Australian National University

Before the official opening of the event the graduate students presented their posters in the Hall Foyer. The
posters showed in a condensed but imaginative way the different research topics that students are undertaking.

The opening of the event started with Professor Tom Campbell, Director of CAPPE CSU,
offering a warm welcome to all attendees and introducing the guest speakers of the first session Public Ethics.

Professor Margaret Sheil, FRACI C Chem, CEO Australian Research Council was the first one to talk in this
session, stressing how well CAPPE has been doing throughout its 10 years and
the great outcomes CAPPE has achieved regarding the quality of the research it
undertakes. The second speaker was the
Hon. Michael Kirby who talked about a charter of rights for Australia. During
the Q&A session, Kirby approached the public (literally leaving the podium)
in order to discuss with the audience their views on such an interesting topic.
Finally Professor The Hon Kim Beazley AC, who is about to take the position as
ambassador to the US, talked about the importance of ethics in politics.

The second session Institutionalising Ethics was chaired by
Mr. Andrew Alexandra (CAPPE, University of Melbourne), who introduced the two
speakers of this session. The first speaker was Professor Seumas Miller (CSU
and ANU) who talked on Integrity Systems.
The second speaker was Dr. Rob Floyd, from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, who talked about the ethical
dilemmas that science and security bring to the fore
, acknowledging the consultancy work done by CAPPE on this matter
for the Department of Prime Minister.

The third session was on the Health Impact Fund and was chaired
by Tony Cody (CAPPE, University of Melbourne). The first speaker was Professor
Thomas Pogge (CAPPE, ANU) who talked about ethics and incentives regarding the
health impact fund. The second speaker was Professor Judith Whitworth (AC, The
John Curtin School of Medical Research, ANU) who talked about the potential the
health impact fund could have for public health.

The event closed with a dinner for
all CAPPE members and special guests. Jeanette Kennett, a former Principal
Research Fellow of CAPPE, who talked about the role of women in CAPPE; the
second speech of the night, was carried out by the Deputy Vice-chancellor Ross
Chambers, who is also a member of the Board of the Special Research Centre for
Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics and talked about the beginning of CAPPE

The day was a celebration for the first ten years of CAPPE, a celebration for
the different features that make CAPPE not only the largest concentration of
applied philosophers in the world but a unique centre in professional and
applied ethics. As Seumas Miller the Foundation Director of CAPPE says—“it is
pleasing to see over time that CAPPE has built important research
relationships with business industry and government both in Australia and
overseas”. Or as Jonathan Herington a PhD student working on infectious disease
emergencies and security also highlights –“CAPPE brings the best in academic philosophy and ethics and brings that to the public sphere”.

Australian Association of Professional and Applied
Ethics National Conference 2009 - Professions in the Community (9th - 11th June)

The 16th annual AAPAE conference, held at Best Western Centretown, Goulburn,
NSW, will commence on Tuesday the 9th of June and will finish on Thursday the
11th of June.

The due date for submission (of both refereed and non-refereed papers) is the 15th of May. Non-refereed papers require only the submission of an
abstract rather than a completed paper.

Accepted refereed track papers will be placed on the conference CD. Non-refereed track papers can be revised post-conference and submitted
for the peer-reviewed Conference Proceedings (to be published in the Australian Journal of Professional and Applied Ethics).

Conference: Smith in Glasgow '09 (31st March - 2nd April 2009)

This conference celebrates the 250th anniversary of Adam Smith's influential book The Theory of Moral Sentiments and will centre around four themes:
(1) Scotland and the enlightenment (2) Culture, literature and the arts (3) Philosophy and (4) The social sciences.

Criminal Justice Ethics Workshop: Criminalization

On Thursday 3 July 2008, CAPPE Canberra sponsored a half-day workshop that centred
around Professor Douglas
Husak's recently published Overcriminalization: The Limits of the Criminal Law (OUP, 2008), and coincided with his visit to CAPPE. Husak (Philosophy, Rutgers University)
argues that justifiable criminalization requires the satisfaction of a set of several internal and external constraints, viz.

Three paper assessing different aspects of Husak's work were presented:Dr. Robert Young (La Trobe University): "Douglas Husak and the malum prohibitum Offence
of Money LaunderingProfessor Heidi M. Hurd (University of Illinois Law School): "Paternalism on pain of Punishment"Professor Michael S. Moore (University of Illinois Law School): "A Tale of Two Theories"

Douglas Husak responded to each of the papers prior to a fruitful general discussion among the 25-30 participants. The papers will be revised and, along with additional papers by Victor Tadro (Warwick)
and A.P. Simester (Singapore/Cambridge), will be published in a symposium, along with a formal response by Husak in Criminal Justice Ethics in 2009.
Subsequent to his CAPPE Canberra visit, Husak visited CAPPE Melbourne.

2007

Private Equity, Securitisation and Corporate Governance Roundtable

Negotiating the Sacred IV: Toleration, Education and the Curriculum

1-2 September 2007, Research School for the Humanities, Australian National University.
This conference has been supported by the ANU Research School for the Humanities, the Freilich Foundation, GovNet (an Australian Research Council Research Network) and CAPPE (an ARC funded Special Research Centre). More

The Governance of Science and Technology

The Dynamics of Capital Market Governance: Evaluating the Conflicting and Conflating Roles of Compliance, Regulation, Ethics and Accountability

An ESRC/GovNet Sponsored Workshop, Australian National University
14-15 March 2007. MoreAudio
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PAST EVENTS IN
MELBOURNE

2008

Seminars

In collaboration with University of Melbourne Philosophy Department and the Castan Centre at Monash University,

4 September 2008, 4:15 pm in the Moot Court Room, South West Corner of the Old (Law) Quad, University of Melbourne, Professor Marilyn Friedman (CAPPE/Washington, St Louis): Understanding as a Requirement for Blaming

2008

National Centre for Biosecurity: Signing Ceremony

On 2 September 2008, the National Centre for Biosecurity (NCB) officially
became a joint-enterprise between the Australian National University (ANU) and
The University of Sydney. This important event was inaugurated by the
signing of an agreement between the two universities by Professor Ian Chubb,
Vice Chancellor of ANU, and Dr Michael Spence, Vice-Chancellor of the University
of Sydney.

Some information on the National Centre for Biosecurity and this new
collaboration is below:

The new NCB’s chief aim is to facilitate greater academic and policy engagement
with biosecurity challenges facing Australia and its region. Biosecurity, as the NCB defines it, is concerned with infectious disease threats
to human and animal health, encompassing:

biological weapons threats

naturally-occurring disease outbreak disasters

safety and security of laboratory research on pathogenic micro-organisms

the relationship between infectious disease patterns, public health capacity,
state functioning and violent conflict.

NCB deals with biosecurity problems of great importance to Australia and our
regional neighbours. East Asia is a flashpoint for disease emergencies and Australia plays a critical
role as a repository of technical knowledge and expertise. The NCB enhances this
capacity by dealing specifically with biosecurity issues of importance to the
region (e.g. Avian influenza, SARS).

The NCB will focus on the research and policy questions of relevance to business
and government. An important aspect of our mission is engaging with policymakers and the wider community, including business leaders, in helping them to understand emerging
infectious disease threats and other biosecurity concerns.

The NCB is unique within the region. No other program which deals with the security implications of infectious
disease in such an interdisciplinary fashion exists within the region. The NCB
is the first of its kind, and seeks to explore regional issues that European and
US-based biosecurity research has so far ignored.

The NCB includes a wide range of expertise across a diverse set of faculties
from both universities. Faculty members with strong research programs provide input from the disciplines
of business, veterinary science, law, epidemiology, ethics, public health,
international politics, and microbiology. The program is truly interdisciplinary
in its mission and in its approach to solving biosecurity challenges.

The collaborative nature of the NCB allows it to bring to bear the broadest and
deepest pool of expertise to regional biosecurity problems. Both the Australian National University and the University of Sydney have
complementary strengths in areas such as veterinary health, epidemiology,
microbiology, international politics and ethics; combined expertise which is
essential to solving complex biosecurity problems.